Fisher is Wrong About Trump Voters

Dear Editor,

I disagree with the premise of Fisher’s piece (“Trump as a Symptom,” Vol 24, No. 1, 8-15) even though I agree with many of the thoughts in it. I disagree on two levels. First, Trump voters aren’t primarily uneducated. When you start googling for demographic breakdowns you find statistics that demonstrate Trump voters were suburban, make over $50k per year (not necessarily uneducated), and that age was a defining factor (older voters went for Trump). Young people and poor/low income voters went for Clinton. “Trump as a Symptom” perpetuates a convenient but untrue picture of Trump voters that is just as prejudiced as the worst (most vocally racist, xenophobic, misogynistic) Trump voters.

The second issue is that this piece assigns Trump’s traits to his voters. I don’t agree with this approach either, although I understand why you and many others started looking at the election with that premise—historically, voting for a president is an emotional decision that reflects one’s values. As I wrote recently in a review of Side by Side (2015), the documentary from five years ago that chronicles Hollywood’s transition from celluloid to digital recording, I think the problem is far simpler than we’ve made it. The digital revolution has polarized us into two groups, one group that benefits from digital tech and a second group that is punished by it. The group that benefitted for eight years hasn’t bothered to make sure the rest of the country was okay. That self-absorption plays out as a form of prejudice (largely cloaked in feel-good liberal values). It’s the job of those who are benefitting to make sure the whole country is thriving.

When I watched Side by Side, I was struck by the fact that no one who advocated for digital technology cared at all that those who advocated for film were losing everything. Everything! George Lucas and Martin Scorsese are very good, old friends, who are on opposite sides of the digital revolution. Not once during the film did Lucas say “We need to make sure the art of film is preserved as we move forward” or “There are benefits to using film, as my good friend Marty demonstrates every time he makes a movie.” Lucas didn’t address the loss of traditional film production, nor did any other proponents of digital tech. That’s a microcosm of what has happened across the country.

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Ultimately, I think people voted for Trump because he gave a voice to their fear and discontent, and they ignored a lot of the other stuff he said because they were convinced life under Clinton was going to be more of the same invisibility that they experienced under Obama. If Clinton had run a campaign on solving the problems of those left behind in the digital revolution (similar to the way John Edwards took up the issue of poverty in the 2007 primaries, and might have won the nomination in 2011 if not for his scandal), we might have a President Clinton right now. Then again, with a campaign that pointed out the downsides of technology, she might have lost the millennial vote. Point being, this mess is bigger than Trump-Trump-Trump.

Fisher’s piece is well-written and I agree with much of the psychological analysis (although I think it applies to many Democrats as well). However, as written, I feel it perpetuates the problem. We aren’t going to understand each other better if we incorrectly examine Trump voters through the lens of these people as racists, misogynists, uneducated, etc. The media plays up those extreme traits in some Trump voters because they are shocking, but the data says other issues were at play on Election Day.

Sincerely yours,

Elizabeth McCarthy

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